Tim Shelton Sr. ProModel Program Manager for Army Programs

With over 6,000 current users, the Lead Materiel Integrator (LMI) Decision Support Tool (DST), developed by ProModel Corporation, is the Army’s sole equipment distribution and redistribution tool.  From sourcing equipment and improving readiness at the tactical level, to cost-based decision making at the strategic level, DST provides the total asset visibility and planning capability that was previously absent to Army staff and materiel managers.

“If you are a Logistician in today’s Army and not talking PSDs [Proposed Sourcing Decisions] you are irrelevant.”  – MG Hurley FORSCOM G4

DST not only consumes and displays authoritative data from multiple systems of record (e.g., LMP, GCSS-A, PBUSE, JMAR, DPAS, AE2S), but it also displays the “due-in” and “due-out” transactions.  This comprehensive picture is needed to provide the complete asset visibility and transactional tracking that enables Army planners and materiel managers to make timely, cost-effective distribution and redistribution decisions.

As the Army has continued to restructure, the predictive analytic capability of the tool has become the backbone of Army planning for equipment redistribution.  DST’s blue sky planning capability allows Army planners to match scheduled force structures with contoured authorizations.  Once that process is completed, the tool runs course-of-action (COA) excursions (i.e., simulations) to identify the best solution for achieving key performance metrics for redistribution of materiel.  Users can define strategies and adjust a multitude of variables to determine the optimal solution.  A few of these variables may include: second-destination transportation cost, modernization of equipment, and pure fleeting of equipment.

The impact of the Army restructuring effort is measured in the redistribution of hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment. Using ProModel’s application framework, DST allows Army planners to run multiple, future COA excursions.  With the tool’s auto-optimization feature, these excursions optimize misaligned equipment across every major command within the Army.  Then, the blue sky planning feature sources from inactive units, and from pure excesses, to fill any confirmed shortages across the Army.  The flexibility of the tool allows newly activated or converting units to be sourced as priority fills.  This type of in-depth analysis, which previously would have taken months to accomplish, can now be accomplished in hours.  The LMI DST is facilitating the change in an ever-changing Army.